


Trauma Rituals

by assphixiate



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Abuse, Anal Fingering, Blood, Face Slapping, M/M, Masturbation, Mirror Sex, Oral Fixation, Past Rape/Non-con, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Self-Destruction, Self-Flagellation, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Spit As Lube, Trauma, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:33:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26785990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assphixiate/pseuds/assphixiate
Summary: He could no longer separate sex from violence. It was the violence that sent him reeling, and it was the violence that brought him back.A series of one-shots on coping (badly) with sexual violence and physical abuse.
Relationships: Cruhteo & Slaine Troyard, Cruhteo/Slaine Troyard, Kaizuka Inaho & Slaine Troyard, Kaizuka Inaho/Slaine Troyard
Comments: 38
Kudos: 58





	1. Sex

Bleary light. That soft red light when your eyes were not quite closed. His throat constricted as he inhaled. The breath moved through him in short, sharp waves, pure desperation.

Through that fluttering darkness, he could make out broad shoulders, blond hair, disdainful eyes. Cruhteo’s wide hands wrapped tightly around his neck, his fingers digging deep into old bruises, crushing. Slaine felt a warm wetness sliding down his cheeks, and his chin—he couldn’t tell if it was the tears or the blood. His face ached; bruised cheeks, bloody nose, busted lips.

Cruhteo removed one hand, still firmly crushing his throat with the other, and forcefully parted his lips with his fingers. He shoved two fingers into his mouth roughly, scraping them roughly across his tongue and deep into the back of his throat. His body lurched as he gagged; Cruhteo held him down, soaking his fingers.

When Cruheto’s hands left his throat, he arched, gasping, his chest filling with air. Cruhteo roughly pushed one of his thighs aside, pressing it into the sticky sheets as he pushed the tips of his fingers against his entrance. He was fully exposed, naked, as Cruhteo towered over him, buttoned up in his red Knights’ uniform. Always clothed, always authoritative. He could feel his back stiffen, go rigid, as Cruhteo forced his long damp fingers inside him, scraping ruthlessly against his sore insides. His clenched teeth muffled his gasp, his hips pressing into the sheets in an instinctive attempt to escape the pain. He could physically feel Cruhteo’s irritation as he stared down with disdain and barked: “Be still,  _ Terran  _ whore.”

Whore. Slut. Cunt. Slave.  _ Terran _ .

That’s all he’d heard from this man, all the years he’d abused him. 

He lay as still as he could, covering his tear-stained face with his forearm as Cruhteo positioned himself between his thighs. He could feel panic rising in his chest, a deep fear settling in his stomach, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Past that red bleary light, searching for pure blackness.

“Please.” It came as a whisper, faint and desperate. He could feel his mind reeling into darkness.

“What?”   


The voice that answered was calm and even, softer, lacking in the icy disdain from just moments ago. His heart was still racing when he pleaded: “Choke me again.”

He felt hands move up his hips and slide up his torso, so gentle and full of grace. He felt a sudden and jarring emptiness where throbbing pain once was. In a single fleeting moment, it seemed to have disappeared, like Cruhteo had never forced his way inside him. He felt those gentle hands wrap firmly around his throat and begin to squeeze, and his eyes snapped open.

Time shifted. Tears still streamed down his cheeks, but the salty taste of blood had disappeared. Disoriented, he shifted his gaze to Inaho’s, whose brown eyes were fixed on his, as if calculating where in time he’d just drifted back from. “Do you want to continue?” he asked, plainly, but he knew Inaho well enough to guage this was a question replete with concern. 

“Yes.” He gripped Inaho’s hands, still wrapped gently around his neck, and pressed into them.  _ Tighter.  _ Always tighter. His hands squeezed his neck slowly, pressing tactfully inwards—so different from the violent, bruising, crushing Cruhteo applied. Inaho was careful. This had become ceremonial, but Inaho always tried to temper the ritual. 

Sometimes he couldn’t stand that.

“Fuck me,” he whined, always so disgusted with his own pathetic desperation. Once more, he felt a hand leave his throat. He could hear Inaho undoing his zipper with his free hand, his body still draped across him, his dishevelled tie pooling on his scarred chest. He could now feel his hard cock pressing up against the inside of his thigh. Inaho shifted his free hand and spit into his palm, then reached down to slick his cock with saliva. This was a compromise. Inaho refused to fuck him dry.

Inaho rubbed the head of his cock against his entrance, smearing him with precum and spit, before beginning to press slowly inside. His body resisted, it always did, and he arched his back as each inch grated its way inside, hot and stinging. Inaho pushed his way deep inside, all the way to the base. He found himself once more squeezing his eyes shut. He bit down his lip, hard enough to draw blood. That salty copper taste again.

A trigger. Suddenly hips crashed into him, long, deep, hard, ruthless strokes. He let out a scream, which was quickly muffled by a rough hand smothering his face. “Shut the fuck up,” Cruhteo seethed. He let out a low, growling groan as he pumped into him. It felt like something was tearing, but he could feel himself getting hard. He sobbed, a shaking sob of both pain and pleasure, trauma and ecstasy. 

“You’re useless,” Cruhteo scoffed. “Tighten up, or I’ll kill you this time.” As Cruhteo crushed his throat, he tightened around him and his cock ached. The tightness just made every thrust more unbearable. But god, he loved the pain. 

He could barely breathe. He felt light-headed, like he’d pass out at any moment. There was a wetness between his legs. Blood. He could feel himself edging. 

“Hurt me,” he rasped, rocking his hips into each violent thrust. “Really hurt me.” And like a lighting strike, Cruhteo backhanded him with enough force he felt his neck snap. It was like instant release. His brain was foggy and his vision went white, and he felt that tightness in his groin give way to orgasm. 

He could no longer separate sex from violence. It was the violence that sent him reeling, and it was the violence that brought him back.

He opened his eyes, his body trembling, and looked up at Inaho. His abdomen was sticky with cum, and he could feel Inaho’s dripping out from between his legs. Not blood. There was no blood. 

He stared up at the ceiling, stiff. He couldn’t tell if he was really here, or he was really there, or if he was even in either of these timelines. It was these moments, the moments after, that were the worst for him. The moments where he could no longer differentiate reality, didn’t know whether he was safe or not. The pain was the escape from  _ this _ .

Inaho gently wiped the tears from his face and tucked his damp hair behind his ear. “I love you, Slaine.”

God he hoped this was real.


	2. Masturbation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He truly was living in two different timelines. He could never be fully in the present, never fully here, with Inaho. He wondered if he ever could. 

A sequel to [Memoir](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3154589).

* * *

He hated those eyes. Sad and empty, pathetic and desperate. He stared at himself with contempt in the bathroom mirror, not for the first time this week. His hair was disheveled. He hadn’t brushed it in days as he sank into a depression that made even getting out of bed unbearable. The only time he left bed was for this—this ritual of self-hatred.

Inaho was at work for the day, but he’d locked the bathroom door and ran the bath just in case. He recognized that Inaho probably knew already. If he thought about that too much he was overcome with a sickening feeling in his guts, a sort of disgrace that made it harm to face him. So he pretended Inaho didn’t know, and they never really talked about it.

He wore his Orbital Knights uniform, the blue one from his time before he was _Count Slaine Saazbam Troyard._ What a ridiculous memory. He’d burned that crimson uniform, but he’d kept the blue one in the back of their clothes closet, zipped in an opaque garment bag. He’d tried, more than once, to dispose of it, but it was like his body froze up every single time. Now, when he was alone, he always found himself wearing it, reliving the waking nightmare of his everyday reality when he was in Cruhteo’s custody. The tailored jacket hugged his shoulders, the belt tied tightly around his waist, and it was like he could _feel_ Cruhteo’s hands on him.

He’d tried so hard to be… normal. To find pleasure in the things that he’d slowly learned were “healthy, sane, reasonable.” Gentle caresses, soft lips, loving words. Something about those things made his chest lurch. There was more pain in tenderness. It was just a different kind of pain.

He breathed out slowly, truly an exhale of defeat, as he ran his gloved hands down his torso and over his hips. These gloves reminded him how lowly, unworthy he truly was. He remembered when Cruhteo used to refuse to touch him without gloves, like his body was sin incarnate. He unbuckled his belt so that he could slide the military jacket off, letting it drop to the floor. As he unbuttoned the shirt underneath, he glanced away from his image in the mirror, smiling wryly at how ridiculous this routine had become. He gets dressed just so he can watch himself undress, as if by a man who was no longer even alive. 

He teasingly ran his fingers over the fabric of his slacks and slowly unbuttoned them. He slipped them down his thighs so that they dropped to the cool tile floor, and slowly stepped out of them. He stood fully exposed to himself in the mirror, gaze tracing the long angry scars crisscrossing his chest. Fresh bruises already littered his neck and his chest, the marks he asked Inaho to leave. Newer lacerations crept over his shoulders, barely visible unless he tilted his body to look. 

He leaned down and picked up his belt, biting his lower lip in anticipation. He stared directly into his own eyes as he slammed the belt over his shoulder and into his back. The loud leather snap was accompanied by a gasp, one of pain but also of relief. He noticed his cock getting harder with each lash. An absolutely hopeless mortification of the flesh.

He whipped himself until he was lightheaded, tilting his head back and relishing in the stinging pain across his back. He slowly wrapped the belt around his neck, looping it through the buckle. He let it hang there loosely for a moment as he roughly wrapped one gloved hand around his cock and began to pump. 

He moaned softly, letting his head lull downwards and his eyes close. “Watch,” a voice commanded. He didn’t know if it was his own or yet another ghost of Cruhteo making him question his reality. It didn’t matter, because he obediently locked eyes with his reflection again. His face was red with shame as he stroked himself to full hardness. 

He began to wrap the length of the belt around his free hand, so tightly the edges dug into the flesh of his palm. As he tugged down, the leather slipped through the buckle and tightened against his neck. He leaned forward onto the bathroom sink, leaning his forearm on the belt so that it locked in place, so tight his vision blurred and the bathroom lights looked like bokeh. He bucked his hips so that his cock slid across his gloved palm, as if desperately begging: _“Cruhteo, please, let me cum.”_

He removed his hand from his cock, quickly and frantically biting down on a finger of his glove and pulling it off. He dropped it carelessly on the bathroom counter, focusing instead on sucking on his fingers. He wrapped his tongue around them, before pushing them back into his throat; he closed his eyes, imagining all the times Cruhteo fucked his throat like a toy. Panting, he removed his fingers from his mouth and slid them between his legs. He quickly pushed them inside, rough, uncaring, mimicking that invasion of his autonomy he craves so much. 

“Fuck,” he rasped as he thrust his fingers deep inside, bucking his hips against the cool quartz of the countertop. He leaned his weight into his hips, crushing his balls firmly against the edge of the counter with a weak cry. That familiar humiliation of his voice bouncing back to him was intoxicating.

When he felt himself beginning to edge, he wrenched the belt until the sound of blood pumping filled his ears. His moans cut off, unable to escape his throat. He shifted his hips back into his fingers with each thrust, desperately aiming for that deepness of a cock forcing its way inside. 

When he looked into the mirror he saw brief flashes of Cruhteo, forcing him to watch himself orgasm to being violated and dehumanized. Oxygen deprivation, the crushing pressure in his balls, the stinging wounds on his back, the fingers deep inside him. He couldn’t hold back any longer. He came with a strangled cry, cum splattering across the countertop.

He released his grip on the belt and as the pressure slackened, inhaled sharply. He shakily steadied himself, reaching up to loosen the buckle. Angry red marks streaked his throat. He slowly dropped to his knees, settling on the hard floor, the cool tiles a sort of call back to reality. 

The heaving of his chest and the pumping of his heart slowly subsided as he positioned himself against one of the bathroom walls. He leaned his head back, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. He listened almost acutely to the still-running water, a sound he’d barely registered just a moment ago. He wiped away the tears he just noticed pooling in the corners of his eyes.

Just then he heard the front door click. “I’m home.” A casual greeting. A familiar hello. It was Inaho’s voice.

He brought his knees to his chest and smiled bitterly at the familiarity of this moment. He truly was living in two different timelines. He could never be fully in the present, never fully here, with Inaho. He wondered if he ever could. 

_What was wrong with him? Why was he like this? Why why why._

He stood up on wobbly legs and walked over to the sink faucet, quickly splashing his face with cool water, and soaking his hair by cupping water in his hands and running them over his head. He turned off the sink faucet. “Just a moment, I’m just getting out of the shower,” he lied, trying to mask the coarseness in his voice. He used a towel to wipe the sticky mess he'd left on the counter, then wrapped up the bundle of scattered clothes on the floor and threw it all in the linen closet, intent on organizing them once Inaho had gone to bed. Luckily, he tended to be a morning bather. He changed into the robe he’d brought with him. He looked in the mirror, pulling the collar up over his throat, so better hide the new marks, and opened the bathroom door.

“Welcome home.” He looked down at Inaho and smiled softly. Though calm as ever, he could tell he still felt some level of concern, having seen him curled up in bed all week. He knew Inaho was too smart to believe him, but he would keep playing this charade of silence for as long as he could.

“Don’t worry. I’m feeling a lot better today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Inaho wanting to help Slaine with his trauma, but having an extremely difficult time grasping how to do so - so he often plays along with him, hoping Slaine knows what will work best.
> 
> I'm not sure that's the best approach.


	3. Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, promise me. You’ll eat something.” Inaho ever so subtly brushed his hand over the crotch of his pants and a shiver ran up his spine. He let out of a sigh of absolute frustration.

Every so often, he couldn’t bring himself to eat.

The look, the smell, an overwhelming nausea when he even thought about food. He’d feel so guilty when Inaho made them a meal; not only a meal, but a moment, something meant for them to share at the dinner table after being away from each other all day. He’d catch himself sitting despondently, staring off into the distance, while he pushed his food absentmindedly around the plate. 

Sometimes, there was a silence, a lack of acknowledgment or, more accurately, a lack of knowing what should be said. Sometimes, Inaho would pointedly call his behaviors out—“Slaine, you haven’t eaten anything.” Sometimes, he would issue a command—“Slaine, eat.” Sometimes, he would feel guilty enough to try. Those times, he usually threw up in the toilet afterwards.

It seemed to come out of nowhere. Or perhaps it was cyclical. When there was rationing on Vers, it was generally the Terran immigrants who were hit the hardest. He remembered Cruhteo denying him food for weeks at a time. Yes, Vers had rations, but it was also to keep him weak, docile, especially when he was younger, when he was being “trained.” It was much harder to resist when you were starving.

And he could remember those large, strong hands on his hips bones, that crushing grip keeping him locked in place when Cruhteo slammed into him. The way he could hold his wrists in place with one hand. The way he could throw him up against a wall with no effort. The way he could pry apart his feeble thighs with ease. He also remembered the subtle gestures. The almost softer caresses on his bruised ribs. That lustful look in Cruhteo’s eyes that suggested a sort of infatuation with him—or at least, his body. 

Something about that shaped him, and the relationship he had with his own body. A body he hated, but objectified. A body he wanted to be beautiful, as an object. For Inaho. And so his own disgust with himself would often coincide with bouts of self-starvation. 

Sometimes, Inaho would attempt to subvert this ritual—generally, by attempting to lean into other ones. As he began to work at the dishes, a penance for his poor table manners at least, Inaho slid up behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist. “You didn’t touch your food,” he noted pointedly.

“I wasn’t hungry,” he responded shortly, focused on lathering the dishes. He hoped Inaho would drop it. He felt most self-conscious when his unhealthy coping mechanisms were noticed by others, but particularly by Inaho. This discomfort was common. Inaho had the miraculous talent of being able to see right through a person. Though, he usually kept his insights to himself. 

“I’ll blow you if you eat something.”

He dropped the fork he’d been scrubbing back into the soapy water, completely taken aback. Inaho was certainly blunt—and he was blunt about sex but he usually didn’t shift so suddenly into being… —blunt about sex. “Inaho, you can’t just _bribe_ me into eating,” he clumsily retorted. He could feel his face warm. Despite his absolute hedonism in the bedroom, he was very easily flustered when he was faced with it outside, well, actually engaging in fucking.

Inaho leaned up, gently kissing at the nape of his neck. “I believe I can,” he stated confidently, hands wandering from his waist to his hips. He palmed gently at his hip bones, dragging teeth down the base of his neck. Goddamn it, he was right. He hated how Inaho was always right.

“This is _unfair_ ,” he complained. His hands were still wet and soapy when Inaho gently gripped his shoulder and turned him around so that they were facing each other. He had the slightest smirk on his usually stoic face. He felt himself flush and averted his eyes, his expression undeniably pouty. 

“Promise me,” Inaho commanded. His fingers worked their way under his shirt, tracing a line slowly, teasingly, from navel to pubic bone. Inaho had become so adept at exploiting his sexuality. It was extremely annoying.

“Inaho—”

“No, promise me. You’ll eat something.” Inaho ever so subtly brushed his hand over the crotch of his pants and a shiver ran up his spine. He let out of a sigh of absolute frustration.

“Fine, I _promise_.”

Inaho’s smile widened ever so slightly. “Good boy.” 

He could feel his face reach a boiling point as Inaho leaned forward and kissed him softly. He closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss. Inaho placed his hands on his waist again and slowly pivoted him away from the sink full of half finished dishes. As he was pressed against the adjacent counter, he curled his damp hands into Inaho’s shirt and sighed. Inaho took parting lips as an invitation to kiss him more intensely, his tongue tracing his lower lip before pressing deeper into his mouth. He could feel himself getting hard.

Inaho slowly slid his hands down his abdomen and began to unbutton his pants, pushing them down his hips. He ran his palm teasingly over this hardening cock. He sighed against Inaho’s mouth as he slowly pumped him to full hardness. Sometimes it still felt so foreign to have bare, warm hands on him.

Inaho broke away from the kiss, tracing his lips down his jaw, to his neck, to his barely exposed collarbone. He slid down to his knees, pushing his shirt up and kissing from chest to the base of his cock. 

“You’re beautiful, you know,” Inaho told him. His heart seemed to leap in his chest. “Just as you are.”

He shuddered as Inaho slowly, agonizingly slowly, took him into his mouth, his tongue gliding warmly from tip to base. He whimpered pathetically at the sensation of Inaho’s tight throat around him.

He writhed desperately, pressing deeper into Inaho’s throat. Inaho held his hips in place, pressing him forcefully against the counter’s edge. Slaine bit his lip to hold back a moan as nails dug into his pelvis and Inaho bobbed his head rhymically. The hot wetness was irresistible. 

With each stroke of Inaho’s tongue along the bottom of his cock, he felt closer to release. He wrapped his fingers tightly in Inaho’s hair, desperately pushing his head deeper and deeper and _deeper_. He couldn’t hold back any longer. His head fell backward, his lips parting in an immodest moan as he came deep into Inaho’s throat. He could feel his knees weaken, shaky, but Inaho held him in place as he, almost greedily, drank down every drop of sticky cum. 

He let out a shuddering sigh, bracing himself back against the counter to remain standing, his fingers sliding loose from Inaho’s hair. Inaho’s grip relaxed, but he continued to hold him in place, as if ensuring he didn’t fall. Inaho looked up at him, kissing gently at the marks he left on his hip bones. He felt himself blushing again, this time with that post-orgasmic shame of how easily he always let loose when he was fucking. 

Inaho smiled softly and stood himself up. He leaned forward and kissed him deeply, and he could taste the saltiness of himself on Inaho’s lips. “Okay, time to heat up some food,” he stated, right back to business as usual. Inaho gently ran his fingers through his hair before walking away to work on his bribe-induced meal. He couldn’t help but smile wryly. Inaho was getting good at this… positive manipulation of his. He smoothed his shirt out, re-zipped himself, and sat at the dinner table to watch Inaho make him a plate. 

When it was finished heating, Inaho placed the plate in front of him. “Thanks for the meal,” he murmured sheepishly. Inaho’s lip curled ever so slightly into a smirk.

“You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is far more comfort than hurt. Mostly motivated to work through how trauma can inform disordered eating/ED. But some fluff never hurts.
> 
> I don't know why, but I assume Inaho would be great at blowjobs. Gag reflex? Nah.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in five years. Wow, I hadn't realized it had been so long. 
> 
> I'm not sure how many people are still in this fandom, but it's so hard for me to escape my love and affinity for Slaine. I'm thinking of making this a series of one shots.
> 
> I wanted to write something about working through the trauma of abuse, the need for sexual violence it can leave in its wake, and the lasting impact that abuse can have on the body and the psyche. 
> 
> I want to keep writing AZ stuff, but I'm not sure what sort of ideas might or might not come to me. Otherwise, if anyone has tips for a new fandom of boys with loads of capital T Trauma, please send them my way.


End file.
